


Abide With Me

by nunwithgun



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Blood and Gore, Character Study, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Religious Conflict
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:20:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22311652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nunwithgun/pseuds/nunwithgun
Summary: Dorothea does not know how to pray.She tries, though. At night, when her mother shivers with the chills of illness, Dorothea kneels by her bedside and tries. She speaks to the woman she’s seen in the pictures of the old tomes, pleads to the green-haired Goddess she knows only through illustrations and her mother’s words.She tries to pray, and her prayers are left unanswered.----Dorothea's backstory written out in the context of her personal struggles with the Goddess Sothis and the Church of Seiros
Comments: 10
Kudos: 56





	Abide With Me

**Author's Note:**

> Just to reiterate the tags, this entire piece deals with Dorothea's struggles around religion and contains minor character deaths, an implied sexual assault, and violence in the form of blood and gore.

Dorothea does not know the Church of Seiros. 

For as long as she can remember, Mother has spoken of Seiros and Sothis, of powerful women that Dorothea has never seen before. 

Her mother loves Sothis with all of her being. She prays in the morning when she wakes, prays over the meals she cooks when she returns home from her work, and prays in the evening before she sleeps. Dorothea tries her best to follow along, but she feels silly closing her eyes and clasping her hands and talking to the empty air before her.

She thinks her mother understands, probably. Mother sometimes sits her down on days when her work dismisses her early, tries her best to teach her from a thick tome that looks like it might just fall apart at any second. Commandments, creeds, and parables stream in through Dorothea’s mind and right back out when she’s released to the garden to go play.

It’s not as if she doesn’t appreciate her mother’s efforts, but she wouldn’t dare tell her that she sits still for an hour or two of instruction simply because Dorothea loves seeing Mother’s face light up in joy. Mother is much too sad a woman, for all the bravado she puts on. Dorothea treasures the moments she can see her truly, genuinely smile.

So she sits, she listens, and she learns a little bit here and there. She’ll get the hang of it, her mother reassures her. All in due time.

* * *

Dorothea does not know how to write. She hardly knows how to read, and her speech even leaves some to be desired every once in a while.

What Dorothea _does_ know is how to sing.

Her mother sings often, both working and idling. Sometimes she’ll sing Dorothea to sleep with lullabies, and others she’ll hum a tune while she sets the laundry out to dry. Though it’s hardly rare to hear Mother’s voice raised in song, Dorothea loves every second of it.

Of all her mother’s songs, Dorothea loves the hymns the most. She’s not quite sure what they mean, or even sure of who they praise. Mother often speaks strange names of people she calls “Saints”, and Dorothea does her best to imitate the complex syllables and master them on her tongue.

Seiros, Indech, Cichol, Macuil, Cethleann. Sothis, hallowed be Thy name. It’s all a big mouthful, really. Dorothea can’t figure out why their parents couldn’t just give them simpler names.

Dorothea sings along with her mother after a while, matches her pitch for pitch and sometimes wonders why her mother stops and stares. Dorothea can’t quite tell what’s in that gaze when she does so, something that she’s young enough to not understand yet old enough to recognize as much.

“You have such a lovely voice, little Dot,” her mother says one day after they sing together.

“Not as lovely as yours, Mama!” Dorothea’s quick to reply, earning a grin from the exhausted woman.

“You’re a gift from the Goddess, did you know that?”

“A gift?” Dorothea cocks her head to one side, confused at the sentiment.

Her mother nods, kneeling down so she’s at eye-level with the child. “Yes, a gift. It’s where you got your name, Dot. I saw your little face the day you were born and knew right then and there that She had blessed me with a kind,”—she pinches Dorothea’s cheek—“beautiful,”—she ruffles Dorothea’s hair—“and talented little girl.”

“Mama!” Dorothea protests, but she can’t help but giggle at the affectionate touches.

Mother laughs, too, and it’s just so magical to hear. She sweeps Dorothea up in her arms and plants a kiss to her forehead while the child squirms in her grip. “Dorothea, my ‘gift from the Goddess’. Thank Sothis I still have you.”

Dorothea doesn’t know who or where this Sothis is, but she knows that her mother is wrong on one account: _Dorothea_ is the one that’s been blessed by the Goddess with a wonderful mother.

* * *

Dorothea does not know how to pray.

She tries, though. At night, when her mother shivers with the chills of illness, Dorothea kneels by her bedside and tries. She speaks to the woman she’s seen in the pictures of the old tomes, pleads to the green-haired Goddess she knows only through illustrations and her mother’s words.

Sometimes Mother grabs at the edges of consciousness, dipping in and out and in and out. Sometimes Mother asks her to sing, but Dorothea just can’t bring herself to do so. There’s nothing to sing about in this house anymore. There’s no praises to be sung when blood spots her mother’s bedsheets, or when the foul smell of vomit and the sound of Mother’s wheezing wakes Dorothea in the early hours of the morning.

In the brief times when her mother is lucid, she reassures Dorothea that everything will be alright. She tells her she has a friend in the Aegir territory who will show up soon to help take care of her. Mother insists that Dorothea will love it there and that there’s rolling hills as far as the eye can see. She spends hours talking of the countryside and how she’s so glad Dorothea will finally get to see it in person.

(Dorothea doesn’t have the heart to tell her it’s been weeks and the friend hasn’t come, so she lets the matter lie.)

Dorothea finds it hard to believe that everything will be alright when her mother speaks as if she’s on her deathbed. In fact, she finds it hard to believe in much of anything when she grows weaker and weaker by the day, when the healer stops coming because the coin purse has long since run out. But if there’s ever a time to believe in something that can save Mother, the time is now. 

And so she kneels, presses her forehead to the warped floorboards of their cottage, grits her teeth and calls Sothis’s name through the tears that trail down her cheeks.

She tries to pray, and her prayers are left unanswered.

* * *

Dorothea does not know how the Goddess could ever exist.

The seventh time a noble’s boot meets her head, Dorothea decides the Goddess is a fraud. She is a fairy tale made up by men who sin too much and women who wish for a better life after the one they’ve lived.

No Goddess would allow her to starve as she does in the winter months, passed over by men in suits who look down their nose at the lowly orphan who dares to beg for a scrap of food. Their wives are hardly any better, all women wrapped in fur who cry at the sight of her before tossing a single coin and moving on with their lives.

She is a sorry sight, she thinks, though Dorothea hasn’t seen her true reflection in quite a long time. She feels her bones through her skin, even sometimes through the layers of rags she wears when she’s drenched to the bone in the snow that covers the bustling capital. Survival is harsh and it’s miserable and it’s awful, but Dorothea struggles on because she’s still much too afraid of the dark abyss of the alternative.

Dorothea sings, when she can find the heart to do so. Sometimes she even dares to bring the hymns that her mother loved back to life. It’s a way to keep her close, a way to keep that fading memory of her face trapped in Dorothea’s mind for as long as possible. It’s also a way to earn coin, and Dorothea finds much later that it’s a way to win a path to a better life.

But when her luck turns and her spirits raise, the real world is always there to beat her back down. The glaring eyes of the little noble boy who caught her bathing in the fountain sear into her mind even as her carriage rumbles on to a new life at the opera. She cries a bit over it, dismissing it as tears of joy to the woman who’s accompanying her.

To be truthful, she doesn’t know herself if they’re tears of joy, frustration, or sadness, at this point. There’s just tears. More than usual. There’s an ache in her chest from all that’s happening around her, but even if her feelings are confused and unclear there’s one distinct thought in her mind that isn’t.

No Goddess would ever allow her to suffer as she has.

No Goddess would ever allow her to feel shame on the happiest day of her life.

No Goddess exists.

* * *

No Goddess exists.

If She did, that man would have long since been struck from this world. When Dorothea first sees him sauntering up to her at the tavern after the show, she feels as if she’s been pierced through the chest with a mighty arrow. Her heart clenches there, throat tightening when she catches sight of the shaggy brunette locks and shining emerald eyes that unmistakably mirror her own.

“It’s funny,” he says after several drinks and idle conversation, his breath rancid with the smell of liquor and his last meal, “I used to know a woman who sounded quite like you.”

Dorothea nods, for shock has rendered her silent.

“One of my maids, in fact. My mistress, as well. Not like there’s much of a difference these days, I suppose!”

Dorothea chokes out a chuckle, feeling disgusted with herself. She knows she must laugh in order to hear more.

“I’ll tell you a secret, too.” The man beckons her closer, but Dorothea doesn’t budge and he’s much too drunk to notice. “I knocked her up, but the whore couldn’t even bother to have a kid with a Crest. Threw ‘em out on the spot, I did.”

“No time for Crestless heirs, hm?” Dorothea knows his answer will hurt. She knows hearing it will tear her apart. She still needs to hear him say it outright.

“Exactly! Who needs a woman in the house, lover _or_ daughter, when she can’t even properly continue the family line?” He beams at her, runs his hand across her bare shoulder and she feels like just might retch on the spot. “You’re a smart one, you are. A pretty one, at that.”

Dorothea just smiles, even as fury rises in every part of herself. Her eyes burn with tears and she’s angry, so very angry. She doesn’t know why she stays at his side for so long, listening to him gush over her performance and rave on about her beauty when she knows, deep down, exactly who he is. Perhaps it’s because if she moves, she might just snap. Perhaps it’s because she deserves to be there, with this wretched man who shares her blood and her looks and all the things she once thought sacred.

Dorothea doesn’t thank the fellow actress that comes to her aid and distracts him. She leaves, quick as a flash and she doesn’t stop running until she’s home at the opera in her room. Her mirror taunts her. The bundles of flowers on her dresser mock her. A game of “who will break first” begins between the wall and her trembling fist.

The wall wins, easily, and there’s no Goddess there to comfort her when she must recite her lines the next day with the most brilliant smile.

* * *

No Goddess exists.

Dorothea finds herself confirming her beliefs the first time her sword sinks into a bandit’s flesh and he sinks to his knees at her feet. His hands scrabble for the blade in his neck, blood pulsing from his severed artery as he chokes and wheezes. She panics, heartbeat racing as she wrenches the weapon from his body but he’s still crying and seizing below her.

Dorothea uses the lone thunder spell she knows to end him, quickly. The recoil that stings up her arms, a consequence of using it at such close range, is nothing compared to the relief of the silence that follows.

The Professor is there moments after, a hand clasped on Dorothea’s shoulder and words of affirmation murmured to her in that deadpan voice of hers. It’s hard to even listen when the fight still rages on around them. Linhardt stumbles towards the next enemy in a daze with blood coating his hands. Ferdinand fells a man in a single swing of his lance and shouts something about nobility immediately after. Dorothea grits her teeth together.

“So,” she says, struggling to keep her tone even despite the way her limbs shake with leftover adrenaline, “is making us experience real battle part of the Church’s teachings?”

The Professor just stares. Dorothea doesn’t know what she expected otherwise. 

She says nothing to anyone else until Edelgard and Petra pull to the back of the convoy to speak with her on the way back to Garreg Mach. At the Professor’s request, no doubt.

“You must be thinking of it like a hunt. When it is predator hunting predator, you must be taking the necessary precautions that you are not hunted yourself,” is Petra’s advice.

“It’s gruesome work, but it must be done. Had we not killed them, those bandits would’ve committed crime after crime against people much weaker than us,” is Edelgard’s reasoning.

Dorothea’s not convinced. “So the Goddess wills us to be predators and executioners?” she asks.

Dorothea doesn’t know whether to feel vindicated or hopeless by the way both go silent in response.

* * *

Dorothea does not know how to feel when she finds out she’s completely, utterly wrong.

The Goddess is real. It’s all real.

And she knows it’s real. She sees it with her own eyes. It’s right there in front of her, in the pale green hair and glowing gaze of a Professor brought back from the dead.

The Goddess is real. She should be relieved. She should rejoice. 

Instead, Dorothea is angry.

She’s not angry at the Professor, the woman who’s helped her and guided her through countless perilous times at the academy. She doesn’t think she is, at least. She’s grateful and thankful for Byleth Eisner, and that’s why it pains her so that she looks at that woman and feels fury burn in her chest.

Dorothea lies awake at night, thinking of all the times she needed Sothis the most. There are far too many to count. Perhaps the Goddess could have intervened when the butcher beat her black and blue for daring to swipe the scraps of his latest cut, or when the nobleman who proclaimed himself her “biggest fan” tried to prove his title by putting his hand up her skirt.

The Goddess could have—no, _should have_ intervened when her mother wheezed out her last breaths.

Oh, how it all aches inside of her as the world rages outside. There’s so much to take in, from revival to betrayal to outright war. Dorothea’s anger mixes with a multitude of emotions that she has little time to sort through as they flee from Garreg Mach like criminals with their newest Emperor. She hardly sleeps in the few days they spend at their army’s encampment, but puts on her bravest face for her friends nonetheless.

Dorothea doesn’t know how to feel when Edelgard’s blade is finally pointed at the Archbishop and their class stands together, side by side and advancing on the battlefield made of the place they once called home. She’s well aware of the regret tangled with anger that still smolders in her at each emblem of the Church of Seiros she sees, even of the small twinge of satisfaction she feels when one banner goes up in flames before them as they march on through the fray.

She finally makes sense of it all when the Archbishop transforms before them once more. It makes sense when she sees the utter hatred that flashes in Edelgard’s eyes as she prepares to lunge at a beast that’s ten times her size with nothing but a student’s set of armor and a steel axe. It makes sense, even through the utter horror of seeing their dearest Professor sent flying with a swipe of the Immaculate One’s giant claw.

It’s terrible, absolutely horrid admitting it, but Dorothea feels satisfied when she watches the Goddess plunge into the depths of the river.

Where she’s going, where they’re all racing to on a path of no return, she doesn’t want or need any Goddess at her side.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a brainstorm I had that started out as a twitter thread and evolved into a full on oneshot because I'm enamored with Dorothea Arnault. This is all pre-timeskip because I imagine she has a lot of thinking to do during and post-timeskip, and I'd like to think that she eventually resolves her feelings when she slowly begins to figure out that the Goddess isn't really a Goddess at all.
> 
> BUT. I'm also lazy and love angst so I hope you enjoyed me reading too much into her backstory and the absolute hell she went through behind the smile and the flirty looks. If you liked it, feel free to follow me (@nunwithgun) on twitter. Every once and a while I'll spout out some threads related to FE3H stuff like this, when I'm feeling smart-ish or something.


End file.
